A property developer has pledged to “reinvent” a historic regional press clock tower and save it from demolition.

Urbanite Ltd has vowed to redevelop the Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post tower, in Leeds, as part of plans to build around 1,635 student flats.

The Wellington Street site was home to both newspapers until 2014, but the tower is now the last remnant standing of its past heritage.

A report by Leeds City Council officers into the proposals stated the structure was set to be demolished a replaced with “a major piece of public art which will also act as wind mitigation”.

However, a presentation by Urbanite to the council’s city plans panel has now heard it is intended for the tower to be saved as part of its proposals.

According to the YEP, an unnamed representative for the developer said: “One of those public art structures will be a reinvented Yorkshire Post tower.

“The idea of that structure is that it helps deal with the microclimate of southwesterly winds, and it also gives us the ability to relocate the temperature and clock gauge from the existing tower, which is seen by many as a city icon of Leeds.

“We want to recreate what you see at the top of the Yorkshire Post tower at the moment, because the key is just bringing that identity back to the site.

“People see it at a low level and they identify where they are in the city.”

The tower, which features the mastheads of the two papers, was part of the building which once housed the JPIMedia-owned titles.

It once featured a large LCD display clock, which displayed the time and air temperature.

The building, cited as a prime example of so-called ‘brutalist’ architecture, was opened in 1970 by Prince Charles, but vacated in 2014 and demolished shortly afterwards.

More detailed plans for the site are expected to be submitted to the council in the coming months.